Category: New Animals On The Farm

Snow on the Mountains! Peachick!

I am sat down with a hot cappucino at hand and lip, and am reflecting on the day I had today. It was a good one! I have nothing to complain about. But there are comments.

First, I managed to keep the snooze button on any anxieties pressed till 6:00AM, then got up and got a good start after getting well rested. That made a nice change from the normal routine I follow! Then I took the girls to their school bust stop. After I came back, I got ready to face the day in the firewood yard down at the dump in the city. It was sprinkling a bit before I left, and on the way down that picked up to a decent rain. Breakfast at McDonald’s did not give it enough time to clear, and before I knew it, I had my snacks and drinks picked up and was sat in the woodyard, dreaming of those sunny summer days. Well, let’s be fair! I hate those sunny summer days for their heat, so I got out and got to it.

The first two logs I picked up were of a yellowish wood with white bark, and a decent smell of honey. I cannot identify it for sure, so I won’t try to say. I also got some willow, I think. It had the right type of bark and white wood, but there were no sprouts of any kind, so it may have been different. After loading some 3,000 pounds of wood I decided that was enough for the day and took off. I was not too sure of the weight till I hit the scales on the way out, so I decided to leave before I overloaded the trailer. Turned out I had a bit of room to spare. Not much, but some!

While loading wood I tried out the little device I made to fit over the top of the trailer’s front, top rail, and has a hook under it to hold the snatch block that the winch rope goes through. I built it because the chain never stays in the right position. This device worked perfectly, and made the whole job a lot easier because I was nto spending so much time preventing the rope from dragging through the second rail. That wears the rope severely. I have already broke one.

Happy with my device, and with my wood haul for today, I came home to help Missus with several things she had going on, then unloaded the trailer. That is a process that does not go perfectly, and I am still working out some kinks, especially to do with getting the log tongs to grab hold and let go when I want them to, as they are not mechanically driven.

I helped with a couple of short jobs while Missus was making a shepherd’s pie for supper, then went and got the girls from their bus stop. It was on the way there that I noticed that there was snow on the mountains! This is the first I have seen any for this year, and it sure made me want to go get more wood and get it all cut and split!

After a lovely meal, I went out to feed the chickens that I remembered were out of food. That’s when I found that another peachick has hatched, and the poor bird was getting tumbled by the chickens. I grabbed it up right away, and brought it in to Missus, as the peafowl are her project. It is now sat across the room from me under a heat lamp in a wash tub with a bit of wire mesh over top of it. It sure is noisey, and I think, quite healthy. We did not have luck with the lest couple that had hatched, so we are really hoping and trying to get this one off to a good start.

Now it is about an hour till bedtime, and I still have to get the rubbish out to the curb for pick-up tomorrow. Apart from that, I would like to relax a spell. It has been a busy, and really quite exciting day!

Back to School

We have been so busy getting so little done lately. Sometimes that’s how things seem to go. There is a lot that needs to be done, and there is a lot that we are doing. But does it feel like we are getting caught up? No. I guess that’s just the way things go.

We got the girls registered for their respective schools yesterday. Our youngest has not been in public school before, and the oldest has not been in for the last five years or so. Hopefully this is a good choice for them. We got them into a district next to our catchment area where the classes will be smaller and they should have the opportunity to know everyone well, and for their teachers to give them the attention they should be getting in an educational setting.

So that is the close of an era for me. I have had a kid at home for homeschooling every year since 2006. Seventeen years! Now, at 52, I have to get things together and figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I have till a week from next Monday.

Also yesterday, I went out to check the feed in the chicken coop, and saw there was a dead peachick on the floor. The mamma bird was not sitting on eggs anymore by the door. Why she had to nest right in front of the door escapes me. I saw her in the back corner of the run, and walked over. Every bird scattered but her. She stayed sat. I hated to do it, but I got her to get up and reveal a day-old chick. The other appeared to be three or four days old, at least. So, to prevent another loss, I gathered the chick and took it into the house where we set up a box and put it in for the night. It will have to be caged separately to prevent it being run down like the other one appeared to have been. I can see it going out again in a couple of months, when it is big enough to stand up to a flock of chickens. It only needs to be as big as a hen. The hens usually don’t bother with the peafowl the way they will do bullying another chicken. As much as I hated to separate the mother and chick, there is no better way.

My latest shop project has been a simple one. I have assembled a stitch pony so I can do some leatherworking at the work bench. It is a simple one, designed to clamp under the force of the bench vise. All I have left to do is get some tacks and put some leather pads into the jaws of the pony, then I can use it freely.

The tractor is running low on hydraulic fluid. It has a leak in one of the pistons on the loader. Honestly, it is a little depressing. Who wants to have to put it in for service. How long will they keep it for? But at least I know why the bucket has been drooping or reacting a little slow, I think. I think I know. I don’t know for sure, but when I tightened the hose to the piston, it acted a bit better. It just continues to leak, and I think I may be a bit tight on the crush washer and want to have a tech service it correctly. Maybe they can do it onsite. Or maybe they can just take the loader, if they have to. Then I can continue to use the rest of the tractor here for some jobs. I think I am a bit spoiled having had that tractor to do my heavy lifting for me!

Well, it is nearly 3AM, and I need to get back to sleep. Or at least try.

New Baby Goats, Again!

I woke up this morning to learn that we have two new baby goats from the other mother. I would guess they were born early in the morning, maybe just before I came down, based on the mother goat licking them clean still.

The goat above is called Spot after the white spot he has on his head. And yes, he is a boy! That is two of the goats born this week that are boys.

The little beauty above is a female, and I managed to squeeze in a name much after that tradition of the llamas we have called Flossy and Pearl. This little one is called Fern.

There was an all black goat born too, but we did not know about it right away. It was dead when I found it. I gave it some stimulation to see if it would come out of it, but there was nothing there. I don’t know how it died, perhaps it suffocated on the amniotic sac when it came out?

Even thought the other goats were only born four days ago, the difference in size is amazing! They pop out, hit the ground, stand up within the hour, and walk around just fine, then grow and grow and grow! Sure can tell they are a prey animal!

So, five new goats this week. That’s a busy one! That puts us up to a total of eleven goats! My, how fast the herd grows!

A New Set of Baby Goats

Our black and white doe delivered her baby early this afternoon while I was out in the barn dropping off some things that did not need to be in the garage anymore. I heard a very high pitch goat cry and thought, “that’s not one of our babies!” I was wrong. It was one of our babies! It was the first of a set of three from that mother, who had delivered a stillborn only six months ago. This time, three! And she did it all on her own, and just fine.

The other expectant mother stayed to the side, perhaps settling into a nest for herself, or perhaps to preserve her colostrum for her own babies when they come, which I expect to be in a day or two, most likely. After all, the father is fast at his work, and even this set indicated that the black and white mother took in three days of being put in with him. They were put in at the same time.

After momma cleaned them all up and all had their first feeding, a quick check of their undersides shows they are two females and one male. The brown one was born first, and we are calling her fern. Then came Oreo, the belted one. The one that has about as much white on him as his mother is Echo.

Looks like I am not the only one to be cleaning out his shop today!

I won’t at all be surprised if the other mother delivers tomorrow. She has done it a few times before and has been very successful at it, so I think she will do fine whenever they come. Goats, kittens, and newly bought chickens are just some of the reasons that springtime is always an exciting time on the farm!

You know? I spotted the boy as soon as he popped out! How could I tell? He was the one that hit the ground, coughed up his fluids, and turned and looked around for his food on mom’s underside right away. He found it before the two that were born before him!

Make It Five

The little sickie of the half dozen chicks we bought today was lay down and breathing hard when I went out to check on it. I held it and tried to see if some water and feed would help it along, but to no avail. It finally looked up at me and its leg stretched out, and its eyes lost their life. It was so small, it only took about five minutes for the rigor to set in, and I was sure then that had definitely passed.

Silver Laced Polish chicks resting in their brooder.

It is sad to have such a frail little life go right in the hand like that. I had hoped for these chicks to be pets. I was hopeful it would recover and live out a long life here, but alas, it was not to be.

So we will carry on with the five which remain, all seeming quite energetic and strong. I had predicted this one would die while we were on the way home with it. But the others give no sign they are on such a path. They appear well. The one that died bent its neck back a couple of times before it went. I don’t think it was a sign of rye neck, but it may have been, so I will be watching the others for symptoms of it.

Our Brooder in right in the egg layers coop, along with peacocks and a Chucker Partridge.
The Chucker Partridge.
One of the Peacocks and a Cayuga duck in the chicken run in the background.

We Bought Some New Chicks

Silver Laced Polish, Straight Run

Today has been off to a get-er-done start, putting away the animal feed while we were out to do morning feed. After that, and arranging some of the new feed we bought to raise meat birds, we wiled the rest of the morning away, then went to do our grocery pick-up. We stopped at IFA on the way and had a look around at the chicks.

I noticed there were Silver Laced Polish on offer for $3.49 a bird, and knowing right off what those were, I thought they would be lovely in Missus’s ornamental flock, so I picked up the half a dozen they had left. On the way home we stopped in to get gas in the truck, and I had a look in the box, and right away noticed one of the birds to be laying down, so we give it a closer look. I don’t think it was just tired, I think it is either a day younger than the rest, or even a bit of a runt.

I suspect our runt will not make it to adulthood, or maybe even the night in the brooder. I could have separated it and kept it apart, but there is no strength in that, and I don’t really have a good place to keep it and to warm it as necessary. So I put it into the brooder, where it will live as it has done in the store brooder, and hope that the feed and access to water will help it grow and survive. If it don’t…

Anyway, we have some Silver Laced Polish chicks now. Five, at least. They are a straight run, so could be anything from all male to all female. We’ll see! I just Googled both the roosters and the hens, and be danred if I can tell which is which.

So, about that meat flock. I will have to run those through the assembled brooder on the floor with a light I will have to buy. That’s fine. They would outgrow the suspended brooder quickly anyhow. They will need to get out into a run quickly, too. It is sure going to be a different experience raising birds that grow up in only two months!